Book list: Peter Pan retellings

With JM Barrie’s Peter Pan having recently entered the public domain, all manner of retellings have been cropping up about the place. Having just read Never After by Dan Elconin, I thought I might put together a list of Peter Pan retellings to go with our other fairytale retelling reading lists. As always, feel free to leave any suggestions for additional books in the comments section below.

There is no place like a dysfunctional home. Leaving everything behind for the Island was Ricky’s dream come true. When his happily ever after is not quite what it seems, he discovers that running away means running toward bigger problems. Trapped on the Island, Ricky must join together with the only people he can trust to help him face his fears and return home. But the only way off the Island is to confront the person who trapped Ricky and his friends in the first place. With countless enemies and true peril staring them down, Ricky’s mission to leave this so-called paradise will become a battle for their very lives.

Don’teven think of starting this book unless you’re sitting in a comfortable chair and have lots of time. A fast-paced, impossible-to-put-down adventure awaits as the young orphan Peterand his mates are dispatched to an island ruled by the evil King Zarboff. They set sail aboard the NeverLand, a ship carrying a precious and mysterious trunk in its cargo hold, and the journey quickly becomes fraught with excitement and danger.

Sixteen-year-old Wendy Darling and her insecure freshman brother, John, are hitting the books at the Marlowe School. But one tome consumes their attention: THE BOOK OF GATES, a coveted Egyptian artifact that their professor father believes has magical powers. Soon Wendy and John discover that the legend is real—when they recite from its pages and descend into a snaking realm beneath the Manhattan school. As the hallways darken, and dead moths cake the floor, a charismatic new R.A. named Peter reveals that their actions have unleashed a terrible consequence: the underworld and all its evil is now seeping into Marlowe.

Paul Dear is a good and clever boy, but he’s special in ways that even his adoring parents could never have imagined. For by day, in London’s Kensington Gardens, he walks and talks with the pixies and sprites and other magical creatures that dwell among the living–but are unseen by most. Then everything changes when tragedy strikes–and a quest begins that will lead Paul to a curio shop where a magical ally awaits him and launches him into the starry skies, bound for a realm where anything is possible. Far from home, Paul will run with fierce Indian warriors, cross swords with fearsome pirates, befriend a magnificent white tiger, and soar beside an extraordinary, ageless boy who reigns in a boundless world of imagination.

With his long black curls, a shadowy family tree, and an affinity for pet spiders, James Matthew bears little resemblance to his starched-collar, blue-blooded peers at Eton. Dubbed King Jas., he stops at nothing to become the most notorious underclassman in the prestigious school’s history. For James, sword fighting, falling in love with an Ottoman Sultana, and challenging the Queen of England are all in a day’s skullduggery. But when he sets sail on a ship with a mysterious mission, King Jas.’ dream of discovering a magical island quickly turns into an unimaginable nightmare.

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . . Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn’t believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell. Peter is unlike anyone she’s ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland’s inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything–her family, her future–to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she’s always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter. With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it’s the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who’s everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

In this sequel to Peter Pan, the story is brought into a contemporary atmosphere. Things have changed in Neverland – Tinker Bell is a punkish character answering to the name of Tink. Both Peter and the Lost Boys are ill, living off junk food which they find in garbage cans on the edge of reality.

Exploring the contradictory human desire for freedom and flight, and safety and security, a novel drawing on the themes of “Peter Pan” explores the experiences of a modern-day Wendy and five generations of daughters–the “lost girls.”.

Exploring the darkness at the heart of the beloved Peter Pan legend, acclaimed artist Brom takes readers into a faerieland at once magically wondrous and deeply disturbing. Threatened by drug dealers who stalk his mother’s home, 14-year-old Nick is saved by a strange and compelling boy named Peter. Now this wild boy with flaming hair and pointy ears wants Nick to follow him into a strange and unsettling mist, to a faraway land filled with fearies and monsters. Wary, yet with nowhere safe to go, Nick agrees. Entering a gray and ravished island that was once a lush, enchanted paradise, Nick finds himself a soldier in a war that has raged for centuries. He must learn to fight or die as he struggles to fit in with the Devils – Peter’s savage tribe of lost and stolen children. He also discovers the truth about the mysterious Peter – a leader of bloodthirsty children, a brave friend, and a creature lost himself, driven to do whatever he must to save his dying land.

Wendy Darling is not the perfect girl her parents would like her to be. Intrepid, outspoken, and willful, she’s always getting into trouble. One evening, confined to the nursery by her horrible nanny, she sneaks out to spy on one of her parents’ glamorous parties. Their world is lavish, rich with excess — and off limits to Wendy. On this evening Wendy uncovers a secret she had not bargained for. It catapults both her and her brothers, Michael and John, into a series of confusing events as she tries to make sense of the mystery and intrigue that lie at the heart of her family.

In this startling new vision of a cultural classic, Wendy intends to live happily ever after with Peter Pan. But Time, like this tale,behaves in a most unsettling way. As Wendy mothers the Lost Boys in Neverland, they thrive on adventure. She struggles to keep her boys safe from the Island’s many hazards, but she finds a more subtle threat encroaching from an unexpected quarter. . . . The children are growing up, and only Peter knows the punishment

Neverland is calling again…Something is wrong in Neverland. Dreams are leaking out-strangely real dreams, of pirates and mermaids, of warpaint and crocodiles. For Wendy and the Lost Boys it is a clear signal-Peter Pan needs their help, and so it is time to do the unthinkable and fly to Neverland again. But back in Neverland, everything has changed-and the dangers they find there are far beyond …

For more than a century, Alice, Wendy, and Dorothy have been our guides through the Wonderland, Neverland, and Land of Oz of our childhoods. Now, like us, these three lost girls have grown up and are ready to guide us again, this time through the realms of our sexual awakening and fulfillment. Through their familiar fairytales they share with us their most intimate revelations of desire in its many forms… revelations that shine out radiantly through the dark clouds of war gathering around a luxury Austrian hotel.

The only Peter Pan retelling I’d ever heard of before reading this was Tiger Lily and I’ve been dying to read it for a while now, but a lot the books on this list look really interesting. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to read them, thanks for sharing :)

I hate to admit this but I hate Peter Pan. I disliked the original book and I’m not too keen on the story either. I know that makes me a bit of a literary pariah, but I felt I had to come clean. (Lost Girls sounds pretty interesting, though).

Not at all, Ryan! I find it quite a chilling story, actually. I’m currently rereading a lot of the books from my childhood, and to be honest, I’m surprised by how terrifying/creepy many of these books are.

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